


American Queen

by thrace



Series: Markenland [2]
Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-11
Updated: 2017-06-11
Packaged: 2018-11-12 19:02:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,078
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11168115
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thrace/pseuds/thrace
Summary: An interview with Clarke Griffin, Queen of Markenland.





	American Queen

AMERICAN QUEEN  
by Ife Okafor

_In an exclusive interview with WSN, Clarke Griffin, Queen of Markenland and visiting professor at NYU, discusses her relationship with reigning Markish monarch Queen Lexa, her plans for higher education in Markenland, and what the future might hold for her and her wife._

In spite of – or perhaps because of – our origins as an upstart colonial assembly throwing off the reign of a distant monarch, America has long had a fascination with royalty. We had our brief moment of playing at king and queen when the Kennedys rose to prominence, the aging greatest generation suddenly caught in the shine of what we thought was our modern Camelot. Yet even long after that political dynasty faded once more into the background, we still eagerly consume news about royals. Not just the British, though William and Harry and Kate all certainly make regular headlines. There’s something ingrained deep within us as a society, perhaps built on decades of Disney movies romanticizing princes and princesses, spurring us to daydream about beautiful people with immense wealth and power whose words can alter the course of nations.

Of course most royalty is symbolic these days, though the wealth remains over the diminished power. But as Americans, we’re still entranced with the lives of the fabulously rich; mix in with that centuries of tradition, court intrigue, and a fancy crown, and you get a mini-industry that mines every last drop of royal gossip for clicks and pageviews.

Perhaps it’s hypocritical to look askance at the tabloid journalism that follows the titled everywhere and through everything while this very article is crafted to appeal to that American curiosity. But arranging to meet with Clarke Griffin, the Queen of Markenland, was an endeavor quite opposite to waiting on the sidewalk with a high-power camera lens. Her Majesty’s privacy is guarded jealously not just by the palace, but by the citizens of Markenland itself. While she might be a minor celebrity in the United States, in Markenland she’s the wife of their cherished queen, with all the courtesy that entitles. 

Mrs. Griffin quite famously refused all offers for interviews when her relationship with Queen Lexa of Markenland became public, and only agreed to the publishing of her wedding photos in _Teen Vogue_ on the stipulation that the magazine would donate $10,000 to Girls Can Write, a non-profit dedicated to educating and mentoring young girls who want to enter journalism. It was to the great surprise of everyone in our office that our request for an interview, made under the rubric of the-worst-she-can-do-is-say-no, was granted and organized for winter break, when both Mrs. Griffin and Queen Lexa would be in the United States and visiting NYU.

We met on a chill, grey afternoon in the temporary office on campus assigned to Mrs. Griffin while she spends the month of January coordinating the ongoing sister program between NYU and the University of Polis. There was a very large guard in front of her door, one of the most obvious changes to her life since marrying the queen of Markenland. He searched both my bag and my person before allowing me to enter the office, where Mrs. Griffin was genuinely apologetic. 

“It’s not like this in Markenland,” she said. “They’re more relaxed in Polis because they’re more familiar with the campus. Here, they’re pretty strict about security just because we don’t have an established routine. It’s not necessarily a reflection on NYU.” 

There must have been other guards besides the one at the door, but the man at the front was the only one suited in what an American might recognize as Secret-Service-style garb. The rest, if present, went unnoticed. But for the guard, she might have been any other thirty-something professor holding office hours on campus, and she kindly offered me warm tea from a thermos on her desk as we settled down to do the interview.

Markish royals have a certain amount of reason to be paranoid about security. Queen Lexa herself is the survivor of two assassination attempts: the first on her father, an attack which left her mother and two brothers dead, and the second nearly six years ago at Markenland’s royal Unification Day Ball. When I asked if her security still thought a similar attack was possible, Mrs. Griffin was surprisingly direct instead of withdrawing or changing the subject.

“My wife is very protective, and not without reason,” she said. “I couldn’t tell you exactly what the Royal Security Service considers a threat to me, if there are any, but I’ve accepted it as part of my life for now. I will say I’ve never felt threatened. The RSS does their job very well.”

Her life has certainly changed from her beginnings as a daughter of a Staten-Island-born doctor who moved the family to Brooklyn when Mrs. Griffin was four years old. New Yorker through and through, she did her undergraduate degree in European and Mediterranean studies at NYU before completing a masters in political science at Columbia. “The United Nations offered me the chance to travel,” she said, reminiscing about her earlier years in the Political Assistance Division. “I’d never really left New York before then. We took some family vacations to Canada and in undergrad I did one semester abroad in Berlin. But I was so tethered to New York, so completely identified as a New Yorker – well, I guess I still am, even though Markenland is home now. You can take the girl out of the city.” She said this last with a knowing smile and asked me where I was from, which promptly derailed our interview for the next fifteen minutes.

Mrs. Griffin has an absurdly engaging quality that encourages you to open up. You trust her right away, and while that may be a practiced skill as much as anything innate, it certainly gives her the upper hand in any conversation. When I finally realized that somehow she was now directing our conversation, I was in the middle of explaining how my parents’ divorce had led to my application at NYU. Did that come in handy as a U.N. official?

“I have a friend who works as an arbitrator,” said Mrs. Griffin, seeming to change topics, but with a sudden professorial tone that suggested she was leading me to a certain point. “She says that most of the time, the people who come to her table who are in the most acrimonious divorces are really just looking to be understood. Yes they want alimony or custody, but a lot of the time what paves the way to resolution is being heard. Diplomacy is the same way. You can do a lot more with a genuine ‘I’m sorry’ than with an hour of threats.”

That does beg the question, though, did Queen Lexa open up to Mrs. Griffin when they first met in Markenland? The U.N. sent Mrs. Griffin to the country during a strange and tumultuous time as Queen Lexa was transitioning the government from an absolute to a constitutional monarchy. Following a national referendum, Markenland held their very first election, free or otherwise, electing Prime Minister Aden Fre, who is currently in his second term. Mrs. Griffin was there for the last three months of the process as an observer and her team’s report on the Markenland election team has been turned into a case study for use in NYU’s own political science curriculum. During her time in country, the local media carefully followed her every move; there were only a few documented instances of her officially interacting with the queen.

“I didn’t see in her my day-to-day,” Mrs. Griffin confirmed. “She wanted to stay out of the process as much as possible. A lot of responsibility was given to the election team, who did an amazing job. Actually, I don’t think she liked me much the first time we met.” She smiled at the recollection, that personal smile someone uses recalling the beginning of a long road. Mrs. Griffin declined to tell me what was particularly difficult about her first meeting with the queen, but did say they both got over it quickly. 

“She’s a professional. I’ve honestly never met anyone who can put aside her own feelings the way Lexa can,” said Mrs. Griffin. “Her people, her country, they all come first no matter what.”

I asked her if there had ever been a moment when the queen had to decide between her country and her relationship. Mrs. Griffin looked at me for a long time, long enough that I began to grow uncomfortable. She has a formidable, interrogating stare that very definitely lets you know that you’re being weighed and measured. “Yes,” she said at last. I knew right away she would not be telling me the story behind that answer. But I at least had to follow up – what was the choice Queen Lexa ultimately made? 

“Being in a relationship with someone with so much responsibility, it makes you do a hard evaluation of your own priorities,” said Mrs. Griffin. “Going into this, I knew it would be difficult. I talked to a lot of the people closest to me, knowing there would be changes in my life, sacrifices I would have to make. I won’t say I wasn’t concerned that Lexa’s position might create an imbalance between us. In other relationships, you find a way to compromise between both your needs, but I knew sometimes Lexa’s needs would be something I couldn’t negotiate. There would be less room for me to be selfish. But the other way of thinking of it was that I was taking on a shared burden. Instead of asking her to choose between me and her country, I would be choosing Markenland with her too.”

Despite her calm tone, there was real passion in her eyes. She seems to have taken on the mantle of queen of Markenland with complete sincerity, though she retains her American citizenship. She is not a Markish citizen, even by her marriage to the queen. Markenland does not permit dual citizenship yet, and so technically she is a permanent resident. Even that is progress; only ten years ago, the most non-citizens could hope for was a temporary work visa that had to be renewed yearly. And before that, during the reign of Queen Lexa’s father, King Hallainne, travel permits were rare, expensive, and good for only a few weeks, and non-Europeans could not work in the country.

“I wouldn’t give up my American citizenship short of extremely extraordinary circumstance and Lexa wouldn’t ask me to,” she said. “She understands that I have roots here. That’s why we come back in the winter and I visit throughout the semester when I can.”

Mrs. Griffin also returns to facilitate the fledgling political science program at the University of Polis, being developed in conjunction with NYU. The country’s educational institutions are playing catchup in some areas after decades of isolationism, and Mrs. Griffin hopes that her political science curriculum focusing on international relations will help the country leap forward in taking its place as a thoroughly modern European nation. Free elections were only the start; the country is still rebuilding its economy after years of decline. The tourism industry, for example, has been slow to rebound, deterred by the country’s harsh reputation towards outsiders and urban legends about hikers disappearing in remote forests. Where Mrs. Griffin hopes her program will help is the rebuilding of diplomatic relations with various nations to help encourage trade.

“Markenland has always had traditional allies, like Ukraine, but even then they didn’t really trade with those partners,” she said, returning to professor mode. “A lot of their industries stagnated through the end of the last century. No exporting, no importing. One of Prime Minister Fre’s campaign issues was economic growth and job creation. Unemployment decreased by almost three percent in his first term and it’s still trending downwards. But obviously he’s been cautious about opening up the country to competitors who might hurt local business. There’s a balancing act here, although maybe you should head over to the economics department for that.” 

The degree program at University of Polis is still taking shape; you cannot currently earn an accredited undergraduate degree in international relations there – yet. Mrs. Griffin’s progress has been remarkable, facilitated by what she called a “real hunger for learning.” 

“Markenland has always been incredibly proud of its education system,” she said. “There’s a huge tradition of service, whether military or civilian, and they’ve always considered rigorous formal education as conducive to honorable service. Four-year degrees are incredibly affordable for citizens. The history department at U of P might be the most...” A loaded pause here. “ _Intense_ building in the entire city.” Mrs. Griffin sounded entirely serious about her description of the history department; little wonder a country so steeped in tradition would be an enthusiastic documenter of its past. But at the same time history is written by the victors, and Mrs. Griffin acknowledged that there were gaps in the historical record created to either favor the royal family or discredit their opponents. 

“That’s one of the things Lexa is trying to fix. She knows better than anyone else what her family did to rise to power, and to keep it,” she said. “She’d be the first person to criticize her family’s legacy.”

A legacy of violence, pain, and dark retribution, and not just if rumors are to be believed. The palace has been slowly releasing formerly private documents detailing King Hallainne’s abuses of power, incidents to which Queen Lexa was witness throughout her childhood, including at least one semi-public execution when she was thirteen. 

“She doesn’t talk about it much,” said Mrs. Griffin. She gave me a very pointed look. “And I won’t talk about it either.”

This was the point at which many interview subjects would begin winding things down, ready to close the door to a long series of probing, and often quite personal, questions. Instead, Mrs. Griffin began to encourage me to go directly to the source with no small amount of amusement. “I can’t talk about it because it’s not my story,” she said. “But just because Lexa has turned down every other major publication in America, it doesn’t mean she’ll say no to you.” 

I attempted to point out the incongruity of this statement, but was met with a fresh wave of encouragement.

“Lexa believes in education the same way I do. Ask. Track down the story. Isn’t that why you’re studying to go to journalism school?” she asked me, a detail I had revealed to her at the beginning of our conversation. Somehow the interview had once again been flipped on its head, and I began to see exactly how an American commoner might have caught the interest of the queen of Markenland despite their rocky start. 

“She likes young people, especially students,” said Mrs. Griffin. 

It’s true that Queen Lexa has given many university town halls in addition to the lecture series she did for NYU last winter. There are hundreds of Youtube videos documenting her engagement with college and high school students in several countries, not just Markenland and the United States, including the rather infamous impromptu discussion between herself and an incensed 19-year-old whose family had once been targeted by King Hallainne. In the video, a young woman stands at a microphone in the aisle of an auditorium, asking Queen Lexa why she has not made formal apologies to some of the families of those victimized by her father. Security begins to arrive, but Queen Lexa waves them off and engages the woman in a sincere conversation, by the end of which she has not only apologized, but promised to make increased efforts at transparency of the historical record – hence the release of private documents from the palace archives. It was a defining moment that led to criticism from some of the more conservative elements of Markish society, but widespread praise from the rest of the country and the international community.

But something about the way Mrs. Griffin said “young people” struck me and I asked if that term also encompassed children, perhaps babies.

She smiled, a politely private smile. “That’s a discussion we’re having, yes. I’ve always wanted to have a family, but there are – I don’t want to say complications. But considerations we need to make, things we need to take into account. That’s another thing I accepted when I decided to marry Lexa.”

Any biological child of Queen Lexa would, of course, be heir to the throne of Markenland. Would Mrs. Griffin want that for her child, knowing the royal family’s painful history and the country’s still uncertain future?

“Like I said, considerations,” said Mrs. Griffin, still polite, still private.

It was at this point that we heard a knock on the door. When I turned around to see who had opened it, there was a moment where I wasn’t sure if I was going to fall off the edge of the earth or not. Queen Lexa herself was in the doorway, looking apologetic for the interruption. She was there to pick up her wife; we had run a few minutes over our allotted time. 

The queen of Markenland is of average height, but stands tall with it, and her handshake was confidently firm. She was in a dark casual suit and she spent a few minutes asking me about my newspaper assignment and my studies. There have been many stories about being in the royal presence, ranging from intimidating to charming to a potent mix of both. That afternoon Queen Lexa was neither. Perhaps it was Mrs. Griffin’s presence, but for those few minutes Queen Lexa could have been any professor’s wife, idly chatting with a student in her spouse’s office. Admittedly, it was hard to forget who she was both from the design of an understated suit that heavily implied real money and from the RSS agents suddenly all over the hallway behind her. Still, she asked several questions in the absentminded way of someone who has an appointment to get to but has to wait on someone else to get ready.

Mrs. Griffin didn’t let the conversation end without one last lesson. She looked very pointedly at her wife, and then at me, a diplomat forging connections to the core.

You can read our follow-up interview with Queen Lexa of Markenland in next week’s print edition.


End file.
